This video provides really great context to one of the big global issues that has been discussed during this war (especially in non-Western countries I'd say the major justification of non-Western countries not joining sanctions, which, in my opinion, were / are the real geopolitical stakes in this crisis).



A lot of the myths debunked in this video I never even heard any contradictory opinion about, and I've studied WWII a lot (far less than a historian of WWII, but more than the average person).

Have you seen climate records, as read from Antarctic ice cores? They tell a story of not one but many CO2 crises that resolved themselves without any intervention at all. — Agent Smith

You do realise that it's these records that have the scientists that collect and study this data so alarmed?

"Crisis resolving itself" at CO2 levels nowhere near the present (far above anything in the records you cite) does not support the idea we'll stay in the Pleistocene, a long period of glaciation and inter-glaciation to which all life currently on the planet is adapted. These were not crisis but part of the long term natural variation.

Melting the North polar icecap is a completely different scenario than the last 2 million years.

Now, if you mean to say whatever we do we can't kill everything and therefore the situation will be "resolved" in that way. No scientist, and I doubt anyone in the environmental movement, claims that the world's biodiversity will not eventually recover in tens of millions of years if we continue the current mass extinction to it's further extent possible.

The question is if the species currently on the planet have any value and if we have any responsibility to not destroy them for our own amusement (including our own species).

Is it moral that I destroy your painting or a painting of a great master just because someone can paint more later? If I burned the Mona Lisa would you sagely point out that nothing has been lost and the situation will be resolved by more people painting more stuff, just like plenty of paintings have been lost in the past and people just made new ones. Or would you agree I should go to jail for destroying a thing valuable in itself and also part of our cultural heritage? Or should I only go to jail because I destroyed property?

... But is not the earth and all its species and life systems our collective property, and not in an analogous sense, but our current legal framework: states own land, lakes and oceans (and only through this foundational state property does any individual or corporation get subsigned any property rights to what is fundamentally state property, always restricted and always returnable to the state as punishment, requisition or eminent domain purposes) and collectively managed in inter-state legal frameworks even the things "no one owns" as common-property (international oceans, space, antarctic). And people own states; or so I'm told.

However, even so, destruction of the earths life systems damages my property also, far more than if someone put up ghastly window shutters across the way.

↪boethius I beg to differ. — Agent Smith

You beg to differ with a direct citation of the Tao while attempting to claim its cachée and mystique for yourself?

Let's wait for the problem to solve itself, oui mes amies? — Agent Smith

This is not what Taoism teaches.

Taoism teaches:

A good traveler leaves no tracks,
and a skillful speaker is well rehearsed.
A good bookkeeper has an excellent memory,
and a well-made door is easy to open and needs no locks.
A good knot needs no rope and it cannot come undone.
Thus the Master is willing to help everyone,
and doesn't know the meaning of rejection.
She is there to help all of creation,
and doesn't abandon even the smallest creature.
This is called embracing the light.

What is a good person but a bad person's teacher?
What is a bad person but raw materiel for his teacher?
If you fail to honor your teacher or fail to enjoy your student,
you will become deluded no matter how smart you are.
It is the secret of prime importance. — The holy Tao, Chapter 27

By coincidence, George Monbiot spoke of this issue a couple days ago, I think worth viewing:



The no "alarmism", meek speak, no difficult demands, incrementalism, approach has achieved essentially nothing.

George Monbiot also points out that while the environmental movement has achieved essentially nothing based, our opponents have achieved system change (implementing neo-liberalism and more extreme oligarchic control).

I think a useful analogy to demonstrate my point is: imagine you were an anti-NAZI activist before the NAZI's gained imperial power, and then NAZI's gain imperial power. Ok, yes, resistance can continue, but it's simply reality that in the the previous goal of preventing the NAZI's from taking over has been defeated. Recognising this defeat is simply reality, and to call it "defeatism" is a category mistake.

If I accept I lost a chess game (because I lost the chess game) this says only that I see reality for what it is, and am not in denial about it, and informs nothing of whether I have a defeatist attitude in chess, or generally speaking, in life.

Of course, yes, people who lose chess games may take on a defeatist attitude and not play anymore; however, to trick them into believing they've won, or maybe tied, when they lost is not a solution to defeating defeatism.

You may say: ok, ok, yes, we've lost a lot of battles but what matters is what we do now.

Which I agree with.

Why I am emphasising the defeat is because if we don't see reality as clearly as possible and don't learn from the past then our next actions will not be very effective.

The environmental movement has been going on a pretty long time spinning the same plans around and around; it is, broadly speaking, become closer to a ritualised mea culpa artistic expression, precisely to avoid effective actions (for it is this non-threatening version of environmentalism that is allowed to not only develop unhindered--as it's not threatening anyone--but provided plenty of resources for marketing purposes of the "Great Firms").

Not only would I argue environmentalism has been soundly and unequivocally defeated since it's inception in essentially every dimension, I also argue that the examples of humanism "wins" were also defeats in the final analysis. Even ignoring that social justice means ziltch if we have no environment in which to have a society: did we really defeat slavery? or simply call it by another name? Do we even have democracy? or do we have a global aristocracy in which "democracy" is part of its self-justification, its sense of superior civilisation, its racism, supporting its imperial control of the entire globe? Have we really accomplished these things? or have we merely built the illusions necessary for global elites to normalise their indifference to the vast suffering required for every one of their comforts, block out every fact that would disturb proper conversation.

Not only would I argue we've lost these battles, every advance merely temporary and somehow subsequently subsumed into a mythological reorganisation of the human spirit to render the defeat of every evil in appearance (in the following moments when our movements rest and congratulate themselves on a job well done) are utilised to transform into a far deeper evil, far more pernicious reality, far harder to fight again: for the defeat of the symbol without the defeat of the substance merely renders what was once fought a nameless entity, continuing as before, truly freed from any scrutiny.

We do not have democracy. We do not have humanism. We do not have literacy. We do not have any single one of the slogans slapped on our citadels of hate and corruption (equality? fraternity? life? liberty? pursuit of happiness? good governance? "peace, dignity and equality on a healthy planet"? are but whimsical fantasies representing the holy grail of tyrannical power: appropriation of the very minds of the oppressed).

For, I would go even further in my analysis. That not only has our cause met with defeat in every single dimension, every single battle waged, but we have now been pressed back to defending our very last refuge: The castle of our own skulls; our consciousness, sense of self and perception of the world. And the enemy is at the gates. The walls are crumbling in. Our gardens of concepts and experience necessary to sustain the very idea of a fight in the first place, are on fire.

There's no way to move to renewables at current energy usage levels. Energy networks can deal with at most a 10-15% shift in energy production, anything beyond that and you get black outs. Renewables will cause much larger shifts and we don't have adequate battery technology to store the necessary energy to fill in the gaps. (That's not to say there aren't hopeful developments in this area). — Benkei

Natural gas being needed to "transition" to keep the grid stable (basically only hydro and gas can react to variations from renewable energy, and hydro is generally maxed out pretty much everywhere), as I've written about in previous posts.

However, the problem is actually even worse than even you describe above, since if you want to move from fossil to electric cars and trucks, now the grid needs to be expanded even more to power these systems.

Just an additional point to add to the de-growth requirement.

However, I don't think for Europe and US a voluntary de-growth is now feasible, but it will happen involuntarily. President of the EU telling member states to cut gas consumption by 15% is already manifestation of that process.

What is interesting to focus on is the other half of get people to a 1950's level, which means growing the economy for billions of poor people.

If that is done with renewable energy (the mythical leap frog), and in a profoundly different way to aping Western society (no cars, local living, local working, gardens, etc. which is easy to do in areas of the world that are still rural) then it could actually just keep going in terms of developing and surpass not only 1950's but even our Western standard of living.

For, if you had a truly renewable and local based economy with significant renewable energy access and highly educated, which costs little resources to share knowledge, using mostly solar, then you'd have pretty much all the benefits of Western technology without the downsides of pollution, urban anonymity, commuting, stupid jobs, homelessness, etc.

It would still consume way less resources and so be smaller if resource throughput is the measure of economy (or GDP essentially a proxy for resource throughput), but quality of life can be far higher than even middle class Western standards today.

It's not that you're wrong in what you point out, it's that it can be a preventative to much-needed action -- it encourages despair and apathy. — Xtrix

This is the disagreement.

The reality is whatever it is and understanding it as best we can is essential (accounting for different perspectives, limitations of our senses and analysis and all that).

A really large amount of effort was spent in the 90s "softening the blow" to society realising this incredible threat and its danger.

Many in the environmental movement bought into this fossil fuel propaganda of making the message more palpable for people to process. The argument was that if people believed it wasn't so bad, no "alarmism" then A. scientists wouldn't be accused of alarmism and B. starting at least some actions would be easier.

However, the water-down-the-danger strategy simply resulted in Kyoto just being a completely ineffective thing, whatever it was.

This was mixed with a lot of corruption, such as creating monetary conflicts of interest for everyone involved including the environmental movement insofar as possible (aka. bribes), but "rational" people need to be able to rationalise their corruption, and the soften-the-blow strategy, people need to have a not-so-alarming message, was the essential mental mechanism to do that. People then quickly believe their own propaganda, that there really was more time, "a hundred years".

The scientists that refused and activists that refused to get onboard the softy-slowly-wobbly-train (basically an alliance with fossil fuels who were going to "invest" in green energy, beyond petroleum and all that) were then just pushed out of the media (due to insane levels of corruption there; journalism quality was way different in the 90s and the denialism industry had not yet really been created, as the strategy of the 70 - 80s was "we need more research" which accepts the rationalists framework, and so setup the "research is done to justify action" in the 90s, which there was not yet a network of just zany anti-rationalist, anti-science denialism).

The big environmental organisations got behind "biofuels" so that people wouldn't need to contemplate driving less, even though the science is clear that biofuels cannot possibly displace any significant amount of fossil fuels, competes with food and wilderness, and public transportation and in particular trains are the ecological transport solution (had USA started a high speed rail network in the 90s, it would be now reaping the same benefits China is now getting).

Now, what was the obvious truth back then?

The obvious truth is that even with the "rosy models" approach, the risks were still clearly insanely high. A political standard had been created (by the fossil industry) that 30% risk of total catastrophe (extreme climate change) was acceptable.

The non-corrupt scientists continued to point out that such a political standard was insane, biofuels a fools errand and not only delays effective actions but makes the problem worse by encouraging more car culture, that by the time we feel the consequences of climate change a large amount of damage will be locked in due to the momentum of the system as well as such effects will cause political and social costs and instability which makes effective actions even harder.

Most of all, the obvious truth the now marginalised scientists continued to explain, was that's it's completely insane to continue to not only ignore not only the climate costs but all the other costs to society of fossil fuel use (in particular cars) on health and ecosystems and just inefficiencies compared to public transport and intercity rail, but continue to subsidise fossil fuels and develop even dirtier fossil fuel extraction methods! and that the policy of stopping the subsidies and internalising even non-climate related costs is by definition a net benefit to society in itself (society is paying those costs through taxes and costly harms ... just not at the gas pump).

So, in short, the "don't be too alarming" play and its consequences has already played out before, fossil consumption went up like business as usual, the critical infrastructure projects that take decades to build didn't happen.

Now we're fucked.

That's the simple truth.

People need to accept that we're fucked (in my opinion) to start understanding and dealing with the situation.

The "it's not so bad, not so alarming, we have time" argument worked when things still seemed normal and we didn't feel any consequences.

The older generations went from being concerned, clearly an issue governments should sort out, another of a long list of frightening pollution issues that need to be solved ... to "I'll be dead by then!!" Older people absolutely loved saying this.

I remember hearing all my older extended family joking about this around the Christmas and thanks giving table etc. And I remember the burning anger and "they know not what they do; the fucking bastards" impression it gave.

The greatest trick the devil ever played, was convincing the baby boomers global warming didn't concern them as they'd be long dead before the disastrous impacts. Also something about markets and progress and whatever.

Now people feel the consequences, are extremely anxious about, wondering how we got here and where exactly here is.

They need to hear the truthful message: We. Are. Fucked.

As, that's what corresponds to their actual experience. People can sense that we're fucked.

What now? Yes, that's the followup question, but the followup question to accepting that we're fucked.

Global famine is here. I wrote (as many others) about that being a "big moment" of global destabilisation and we need to act before such things start to happen, to avoid being fucked, 20 years ago.

Analysis was correct then, correct now, and now that global famine is upon us the conclusion of such analysis, that we're fucked, also remains true.

Of course, actions can make us less rather than more fucked, and we should do what we can.

It seems to me that this gets "recognized" over and over again on this forum and in this thread.

The situation is hopeless in terms of the damages already done ... which most people are unaware of.

The situation is also hopeless in terms of avoiding significant further damages that are simply now physically unavoidable.

We are currently in a global famine, caused by climate change and socio-political disruptions arguably themselves also related to climate change not helping stability as well as direct resource competition.
— Xtrix

I don't see much recognition of real actions and solutions. The underlying message is: it's hopeless. I don't see how anyone can read these comments and not have that be the takeaway. — Xtrix

This is not my message.

You completely ignore the part where I explain my view that doing whatever we can, as effectively as we can, is a moral imperative, regardless of the likely outcome.

Furthermore, I made it clear I viewed extinction as highly unlikely and everything we do now has significant impact on where the environmental and social damage eventually plays out.

Which I'm sure on a "philosophical level" you agree with.

What you seem to take issue with is, again without disagreeing, my laying out the reality in blunt terms (as I see it).

The reality is simply that it's no longer 40 years ago where obvious, easy to implement policies (stop subsidising fossil, start internalising its true costs ... which society pays anyways a long list of, not just climate change!) could have easily avoided the current crisis.

It's not even 20 yeas ago when I got full time into working on climate change, where bold but feasible actions, again, would have avoided the current crisis.

The only ones denying the horrors of climate change are climate deniers.

I'm not claiming anything said is false, I'm questioning the emphasis. Yes, we should have acted -- yes, it's bad right now and will get worse -- yes, it's a very hard path ahead.

That being said, let's move on. Dwelling on it does no good, and in fact can have the opposite effect -- i.e., of retarding action. — Xtrix

Yes, I agree we are only really debating emphasis.

Which, I gave my view on the "hope" question because I was asked specifically that.

However, to act effectively requires a clear understanding of the situation, this is where maybe there are genuine differences.

An optimal plan depends on the effective-time and resources-over-time available.

Decades ago, the actions required were obvious and there was time to implement the policies in a gradual way.

I would argue that is no longer the case, and we are in a much more urgent situation, and "exactly how urgent" does matter in the calculus of optimum strategy.

Though, I don't think the idea of a "midnight deal" with Ukraine would have been very realistic. — Tzeentch

Obviously not. I develop the possibility to simply underline that the proposed moral imperatives to defend Ukrainian sovereignty, Ukraines's "right to join NATO", and defending freedom and so on, are obviously not the guiding principles of NATO or US foreign policy vis-a-vis Ukraine.

They say these things, but they are obviously not true.

Ukraine is one of Russia's primary foreign policy interests - the country and its institutions are likely soaked with Russian intelligence operatives. — Tzeentch

Although I agree with these statements, I would disagree that somehow Russia would have thwarted Ukraine joining NATO (in nearly 2 decades of talking about it). If Russia had that power, the 2014 coup would not have happened, and if it did anyway, Russia would have reversed it.

Ukraine even put in their constitution the aspiration to join NATO, and Zelensky tells the story of going to NATO and asking "are we there yet" a bunch of times.

Furthermore, NATO is at least on paper a defensive alliance. While the United States is by far the most dominant partner in the alliance, such a move would greatly damage NATO's legitimacy even to its own members. — Tzeentch

Ukraine joining NATO would have just been for Ukraine's defence. Obviously it is provocative to Russia and could trigger a war ... but a defensive war from NATO's point of view. NATO apologists even today argue that expanding East, including the "partnership" with Ukraine is all purely defensive and therefore not aggressive, missiles in East Europe are to defend against Iran etc. and therefore NATO is in no way responsible for the Ukrainian war and did not "provoke" Russia.

Again, just begs the question that if it was so obvious to everyone that Ukraine will never join NATO, why does NATO state Ukraine will join NATO and build military partnership and so on, if there's no intention to every follow through?

For the United States and Ukraine to enter into a pact bilaterally I think is equally unlikely, not to mention not very convincing. — Tzeentch

The point of mentioning the bilateral possibility is just to prebuttal the excuse that joining NATO would be a long process in which Ukraine would be invaded.

US has zero problem with unilateral actions that upset their allies when it wants; just throws some freedom fries at the detractors and calls them names.

And, the double standard, UK rushes over to Finland to offer bilateral security commitment of some form to cover the NATO "ascension" process.

The reason the bilateral option is the exact same analysis is because it's US policy to say Ukraine can join NATO and Ukrainian sovereignty is so important and so on, without doing what coheres to such statements.

Second, Ukraine is on Russia's doorstep, whereas 9,000 kilometers and an ocean seperate Ukraine and the United States. In the unlikely event that the United States would commit to defending Ukraine with conventional means, by the time it arrives the battle would have been over. The Baltic States suffer from the same strategic problem. — Tzeentch

The current war is approaching half a year ... so I don't see how the US could not show up in this time frame.

However, the point of an defensive alliance pact with Ukraine and sending boots on the ground and planes into Ukrainian airspace to defend Ukraine, is because (before the war) it puts Russia in the position of attacking American troops directly in a war of aggression, which risks nuclear escalation.

In terms of conventional military terms.

Obviously, the US directly intervening would be a significant increase the force compared to just Ukraine, it would optimise in a whole bunch of ways the effectiveness of Ukrainian troops.

In terms of conventional military analysis, there are high risks on both sides.

One may argue that if Ukraine has been able to compete by itself and arms supplies, that Ukraine + US would easily win.

The problem with that argument would be that Russia has not fully mobilised, and is only committing enough troops and resources to win while trying to minimise political and economic risks.

However, if US were to send boots on the ground in Ukraine, full mobilisation would be a likely result. So, such a scenario is quite far from the current situation.

If diplomacy failed and Russia to conventionally attack in this scenario, taking land would not be a big priority in the first phase of the way.

The big stakes would be air power.

No one knows (not even the engineers and commanders and pilots) what the effectiveness of stealth planes would be in a full scale air war. If it's highly effective, Russian air power and air defence would be completely humiliated. If it's not highly effective, the US would be humiliated.

Likewise, no one knows how effective US air defence would be in a full scale war.

Russia would of course hesitate to invade, things would be insanely intense, and there would be an attempt at a diplomatic resolution.

In strategic terms, there's lot's to debate, however, the real reason it did not happen and was never even a credible possibility for everyone is:

1. USA has no genuine interest in Ukrainian sovereignty, defending freedom and all that (it's purely propaganda to sell the intervention part of the policy, supplying arms, and then the "duh, get real, we won't actually defend Ukrainian sovereignty we're just saying we care to bleed the Russians" position is explained to answer the question of why not do more).

2. USA has no genuine interest in a diplomatic resolution to have avoided or then resolve anytime since the start of the war.

3. USA does not have the diplomatic statespeopleship or sufficient cognitive level of governance processes to conduct a high stakes, skin in the game, standoff strategy and concurrent diplomacy required for a Cuban missile crisis style move (which saw the US directly embargoing Russian ships and a military standoff in the Atlantic, very close the WWIII, but a diplomatic resolution as neither the US nor the Russians actually want WWIII). You would need actual non-corrupt politicians that at least genuinely believe what they are saying, and are actually focused on governance rather than their stock portfolio, and aren't older than the life expectancy of the country they are governing, for such strategic moves to even be contemplated seriously to begin with.

The point of developing the this scenario is to simply point out that there were options available if Ukrainian sovereignty and Ukrainian lives and drawing the line on Russian expansionism, was actually a priority.

It's "not realistic" for Ukraine to "actually" be defended by its "friends" is an argument that attempts to cover for the fact Ukraine is not a priority, Ukrainian lives don't matter, and "stopping Russia" is insofar as Ukrainians are dying to slow Russia down and not a serious undertaking.

However, the idea it's not realistic simply begs the question of why NATO stated Ukraine would eventually join in the first place.

Had NATO and Ukraine never been jerking each other off in an alleyway, and then suddenly there's unprovoked "Russian aggression" then the policy of "bad Russia, naughty Russia, we don't expand empires in the 21st century!" followed up with "helping Ukrainians defend themselves" and sanctions, would make coherent sense. NATO had been hands off Ukraine, and such respect for Russia was met with an illegal invasion. Since US and NATO policy is to not provoke Russia in Ukraine as it's totally unrealistic US and/or NATO would ever put actual skin in the game in a Russia-Ukraine conflict, then, ok, the policy line of just supplying arms and giving Ukrainians the "means to defend themselves" could make some sense.

And, that's become more-or-less the discourse now, rebranding NATO expansion Eastward as "just defensive" and "nothing to do with US imperialism", and the NATO-Ukrainian collaboration was not a provocation as everyone "knows it's not realistic for NATO to ever actually care about Ukrainians", and so on.

But it is simply in contradiction to the facts, and requires memory holing things that happened literally months ago, such as "Ukraine's right to join NATO" and "Ukraine's sovereignty over it's territory, even over regions that objectively do indeed want to separate" and "Ukraine's right to self-determination" (just not it's individual components) was the "big" meme going around justifying dumping arms in Ukraine, and justifying Ukraine rejecting all proposals by Russia, such as recognition of Crimea, Dombas independence, neutrality (NO! Right to join NATO!!!).

Of course, the "right to join NATO" without it being realistic to ever be able to join NATO (but by golly come on in Sweden and Finland, we have a door open policy!), is fucking dumb and tens of thousands of lives later, and no feasible way for Ukraine to take back all it's territory by force, much less Crimea, and the diplomatic resolutions available at the start of the war seem pretty attractive and the "right to join NATO" ... but only for Finland and Sweden seems very much cynical hypocrisy using Ukrainians as pawns, so, memory whole.

But those things happened. Those things actually happened.

Another tactic that gets deliberately perpetuated is the sense of hopelessness and helplessness. "I can't do anything; It's too big; nothing will change anyway; it's already over." — Xtrix

Recognising the damage already done and also baked in, is not a "I can't do anything".

I repeat several times that it remains a moral imperative to do what we can, and also what we do now will have a large effect on how much damage we end up doing.

However, it is simply reality that we can not avoid severe damages, which have already happened. 85% reduction in animal biomass is incredible level of damage to life.

This is true not only of climate change but of many other issues; it was true for women's rights and civil rights and gay rights. — Xtrix

There's a few differences with these comparisons that may help elucidate my point.

The transatlantic slavery trade and American slavery was going on for hundreds of years before it was abolished (not to say slavery elsewhere or at other times was less bad, but just to focus on one particular sequence of events). There's already a large amount of damage and suffering that has been perpetrated, that obviously people against slavery recognised. The amount of suffering and social damage transatlantic slavery caused over hundreds of years is truly immense.

Certainly, for many against slavery, the "institution" seemed so powerful, the madness going on so long and the suffering so enormous that it would feel at times hopeless. And put yourself in the shoes of people who opposed slavery hundreds of years before it was eventually abolished.

And, here's the point, no matter how overwhelming the suffering is and the danger of that inspiring helplessness rather than action, simply denying the reality of the suffering of slavery doesn't help. Pretending that "slavery isn't so bad" to make the issue more emotionally approachable I think you would agree is not a good strategy for anti-slavery work.

The difference with climate change, is that we had the potential to avoid these damages.

So, a better analogy would be people who acted to try to avoid slavery, transatlantic or otherwise, starting in the first place, or avoid one of the various genocides.

Obviously they failed. Now, doesn't mean their actions were useless, or "hopeless" in the sense they should not have acted.

However, denying the scale of the horror once it happens is not useful either, and certainly has an emotional impact.

Policies were easily available to avoid severe consequences of climate change. The thing to do now is limit the damages, but it is simply reality to recognise the failure to avoid the entire disaster in the first place.

You're bat shit crazy. — Olivier5

I'll explain it again (I don't expect for your benefit, but perhaps others).

Consider these positions:

1. Ukraine has a right to join NATO and NATO was right to invite Ukraine to join, extend a hand as friends do.

2. Ukraine joining NATO would obviously have significant risk of WWIII and thus it is right that NATO never let Ukraine actually join over nearly 2 decades of talking about it.

The simultaneous praise of NATO defending Ukrainian sovereignty to join NATO as well as the "level headed" evaluation that Ukraine must never join NATO to avoid risk WWIII, are simply incompatible positions.

The only logic where these position make sense is if the goal is to bait the Ukrainians into a war with Russia by giving them a false sense of security and that their elites, and large part of their population, can simply ignore diplomacy with Russia and more-or-less just flip them off, as "NATO's got their back".

However, had NATO actually followed through on it's word (or simply US and UK in a separate nuclear umbrella alliance), actually cohered with point 1 above, then it would be a bold move but war would very unlikely and other things could be offered to Russia to compensate Ukraine in NATO. For, Russia doesn't want WWIII either (if they did ... we'd already be dead).

So, the crisis would have been extremely intense, but likely less actual risk of WWIII than the current situation, and no actual war in Ukraine, no food and energy crisis.

Now, if Ukraine joining NATO would potentially cause WWIII and "everybody knows that" so Finland Sweden can join a weak after changing their minds about it, but Ukraine: No Ukraine, No, Bad Ukraine, No NATO for you!

Then why state Ukraine will eventually join NATO multiple times, start NATO "partnership" and military training and collaboration, as official NATO policy ... without ever the intention for Ukraine to actually join NATO.

If the position is "Ukraine can't join NATO, everybody knows that!" what was the purpose of NATO playing footsie with Ukraine for nearly 2 decades?

More importantly, this half-asked support for Ukraine is more likely to lead to WWIII than simply a midnight deal (even in the days before the war) of US placing Ukraine in a defensive pact.

The current trajectory profoundly destabilises the entire global political system.

The consequences are completely unpredictable, not just the war in Ukraine and its regional implications, but the consequences of the added food and fuel crisis during an inflation crisis and negative consequences of Covid policies (which, whether you evaluate them as "justified" in themselves, the price is a seriously weakened political and economic system globally, in which the amplification by the current war must be taken into account in the risk-benefit analysis--and, regardless of the analysis, recovering from the pandemic is not "the best time" for the sort of war in Ukraine).

This sort of chain of overlaying crisis is what collapses systems.

Resources (both mental and physical) are only available to deal with a limited amount of crisis at a time. Multiple crisis at some point overwhelms a system's ability to interpret what is happening in a remotely accurate way, and no further effective decisions can be made even if suddenly elites genuinely want to "fix things" (which is also not a given).

And all this is information known to NATO planners and decision makers.

Bleeding out the Russians and trying to collapse the Russian economy, obviously has certain consequences: war of sanctions (ah, sorry it's "weaponising exports" and not tit-for-tat sanctions when Russia does it), obstructing food exports that obviously comes with a protracted war (during a global drought!?!), advanced weapons flooding into the black market, all of which destabilises profoundly the whole global system.

A profound destabilisation that makes WWIII certainly more likely than not-dumping-weapons-in-Ukraine and supplying intelligence, and, I would argue, more likely than had US done a midnight deal to "#stand with Ukraine" and "#believe Ukraine". Had US sent boots on the ground and "stood up to Putin" a war would be less likely, diplomatic solution more likely (such as giving Russia Nord Stream 2, other concessions needed to avoid a war). Of course, you can say that's not a good idea as there's still a chance of WWIII in such a tense standoff ... ok, but then in that logic the current policy is no more defendable and arguably increases likelihood of WWIII even more.

And the bodies are already starting to pile up, even if we consider only humans and ignore the 85% loss in wild animal biomass.

Perhaps the most succinct way to express my point of view here, is my contention is that to that to say there's still hope to avoid disaster is to say the pile of bodies we already have doesn't count, and we'll start counting later for some reason.

Of course, I would agree we must do our best regardless of the likely outcome.

A moral imperative does not conveniently go away simply because the goal is unlikely to be achieved.

But in terms of evaluating prospects, certainly seems to me now that we'd need a miracle to preserve anything remotely resembling "normal" and our precious "civilisation".

We are certainly experiencing the consequences of some people's actions. Yes it does seem futile; yes it is hard to be optimistic; yes some people have lost faith in humanity. — Bitter Crank

Are the people to blame for this? The power imbalance corresponds to level of responsibility, in my view -- and the imbalance is very, very skewed towards the wealthy. — Xtrix

I agree with these statements.

I'm not sure if and I are saying exactly the same thing, but I believe so.

Our point of view here is considering humanity as a whole including its elites, just as anthropologists do the same for past society's. Nearly all societies have hierarchy and elites, more or less inequality (from brutal slaving to mostly symbolic differences in wealth and power).

When anthropologists consider the reasons for a society's "success" or "failure", be it defined as basic survival or then imposing or resisting hegemonic power, the elites are simply one component in the analysis. Certainly they are "more to blame" than the less powerful individually, but if we agree the less powerful could easily unite and topple the elites at any moment ... then collectively the less powerful have more responsibility.

However, in terms of simply evaluating prospects of a society, the blame game is irrelevant to that. If a society fails, who's to blame is a followup question to how and why the society failed (certainly elites are an important factor, but not the only one).

To summarise, and this is where perhaps I diverge with in terms of assigning things to human nature, by faith in humanity, at least speaking for myself, I must be honest and recognise my faith in my youth was in this particular humanity, elites and all, overcoming our differences and failings at least enough to avoid a climate disaster.

I truly had in my mind the "we did it" moment. Truly believed the elites were genuinely divided on this question of the destruction of the planet and enough elites and enough of everyone else could and would band together for what no one can deny: the destruction of the planet's living systems is not a good thing and we should avoid it.

And, perhaps, if we simply had more time (and, hopefully, we do have more time than it appears now) the "day, indeed, would come".

But today, it at least feels, time has run out on this humanity.

Perhaps there will be other humanities in the future, who learn from our mistakes and misdeeds and indifference, and truly cherish and care for the crumbs of life; that fall from our table of plenty.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... private equity laundering money off the shoulder of Angola ... I watched I-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.

... All those moments ...

!! In my new book !!!

But this has nothing to do with the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine. The reason Biden is being cautious is because he wants to avoid WWIII, i.e. a war between Russia and NATO.

I think even you can understand the difference between WWIII and the use of nukes against Ukraine. Those are two very different hypotheses. — Olivier5

Nukes in Ukraine is the start of an escalation pathway to WWIII, also just makes the world generally more unstable and WWIII more likely people seeing nukes being used and "in play" so to speak, makes everyone else on a hair trigger.

But it's not just WWIII, breaking the nuclear taboo is bad for USA, as it reduces their conventional force relative power if people have and are willing to use nukes to strike carrier groups; and as nuclear proliferation continues, which the actual use of nuclear weapon would super charge, it increases the probability of state and non-state actors willing to use Nukes against the USA in "self defence" and simply not caring if USA nukes them back ... which USA may not actually do (nuke cities in retaliation for nuking a carrier group).

That's the paranoid answer, but it's not the only one. — Olivier5

Paranoid how? If it was a moral imperative to supply Ukraine and defeat Russia, then you want to send in all the weapons systems day one, not supply only shoulder mounted missiles, hype the shit out of them, and then when that doesn't actually "defeat Russia" and Ukraine is insisting on heavier weapons, send in the excess soviet stuff lying around, hype the shit out of ex-soviet state bravery to dump all that in Ukraine (and get replacements from US), then send in a few M777's, more sophisticated anti-air systems, hype the shit out of those ... also what happened to the switch blades ... and then literally 5 months later when all those weapons failed to "win" supply 9 HIMARS in a show of "we care".

It's just the obvious truth. NATO could do way, way more than it has done even just in weapons supply (not to mention a no-fly zone or boots on the ground). It doesn't do more.

Well why? Why do just enough so Ukraine doesn't completely collapse but not enough to even credibly say you are trying to support Ukraine to the win?

The funniest part of your hypocrisy is that you see NATO as not expansionist enough. You are asking: why don't they expand to Ukraine? — Olivier5

Yes, a midnight deal to put Ukraine into NATO, dare the Russians to attack, would at least be coherent with the view that Ukrainian sovereignty is a moral imperative, and I would have respected such a move.

Maybe I'd be dead in a nuclear fire, but I'd be burning with a minimum respect for the people who triggered WWIII. They said they cared about Ukrainian sovereignty and they fucking followed through.

Now, pointing out I'd respect such a move more than dangling NATO in front of Ukraine, giving them a false sense of security, leading directly to this disastrous war, doesn't mean I think that was the best choice.

However, had NATO (or even just the US and UK on their lonesome) put Ukraine under their nuclear umbrella before the war, obviously it would have ben a ballsy move I could respect, in the sort of insane ballsy cowboy, staring down them mine shaft boys sort of way. And maybe it would have worked, that Russia would have backed off, or then some diplomatic resolution from a hard negotiating position, but giving Russia Nord Stream 2, a bunch of other concessions to accept Ukraine in NATO.

Would have maybe avoided the war, avoided the food crisis, avoided the energy crisis.

Of course, American's don't have the fucking balls, nor give a shit about Ukrainians at the end of the day.

What's left?

Pawns.

Pawns in the rain.

Unfortunately it'd be too late in large part to stop the damage. — Mr Bee

Yes, question is how much damage.

In addition the failure to act will open up a whole host of other issues on which society will divide itself such as fights over natural resources, migration, and more pandemics (and judging by the way COVID was handled, it's not looking very good). — Mr Bee

The window of political feasible solutions closes before, potentially a lot before, the window of strictly physically feasible solutions.

This was a big point of particular emphasis 20 years ago in the community of collapse analysts), that the time to act is when the system is stable and not unstable due to the consequences of the bill coming due.

It's safe to say that this year has pretty much made me lose faith in humanity altogether. — Mr Bee

Same.

I suppose it is necessary to try nonetheless, but it does feel more and more futile.

With all the recent events going on now, it's hard to be optimistic. — Mr Bee

Agreed.

Human nature is just inherently flawed and we probably deserve whatever is gonna come our way. — Mr Bee

Of course we can debate human nature, but I think we would agree that we are now experiencing the consequences of our actions.

Well Russia isn't exactly keen on stopping climate change (in large part due to it's reliance on it's gas), Brazil is currently run by a man who seems fine with letting the Amazon burn (at least hopefully until October), China is the world's biggest emitter currently, India isn't really that far off from China, and the US... well enough has already been said about that. — Mr Bee

Exactly, why destroying Europe as a relevant political actor on the world stage is ... wait, pretty great from fossil fuel exporters who deny the reality of climate change (or already bought their bunkers, and deny the stupidity of such a plan) point of view.

Pretty dark times indeed. Do you see any possible solution to this mess or has humanity royally screwed itself over for the foreseeable future? — Mr Bee

The reason cynicism tends to increase in the environmental movement with age is because the goal posts keep moving. First generation of environmentalists were concerned about humans causing the extinction of single species (carrier pigeon and dodo) and failing to preserve those species was viewed as "losing".

After the environmental movement failed (or society failed the environmental movement, I would say is more accurate) to create policies to preserve single species, the goal posts moved to entire ecosystems.

Where we are in that task is:

- Livestock account for 0.1 Gigatons of biomass
- Humans account for 0.06 Gigatons of biomass
- Wild mammals 0.007 Gigatons of biomass
- Wild birds 0.002 Gigatons of biomass

This shift from wild biomass to livestock represents about an 80% loss of biodiversity, in terms of genetic variation losses in damaged / collapsed populations.



"Conservation" has resulted in a lot of species not going entirely extinct that otherwise would, however, conservation simply delays the inevitable if the whole earth system is damaged to an extent to change things like ... climate comes to mind, thus wiping out even the small pockets of "conserved" nature. If the whole earth system is not cared for, these pockets of conservation can not be sustained over the long term as larger environmental changes.

Which is the general theme of the environmental movement of one faustian bargain after the next.

In short, the ecological apocalypse has already happened.

Now, the goal posts are moved to just basic survival of humans and earth as a going concern.

This is still achievable from an engineering point of view, and even on an apocalyptic landscape with 50-90% of the currently inhabitable earth no longer liveable, humans can likely survive on the poles. There are pathways to full extinction but these seem unlikely edge cases in terms of environmental collapse (such as oxygen depletion or turning the atmosphere toxic).

More damage to earth life and ecosystems is guaranteed, the question is how much more and how many more people will die in horrible ways.

Since the processes of discombobulation are unpredictable and chaotic, even relatively small things done now can have a large effect on where we end up on the biodiversity-loss-dystopian-collapse spectrum.

In terms of engineering and earth stewardship, multiple WWII scale efforts started now would have a decent change of more-or-less stabilising the climate and biodiversity.

Unfortunately, as we enter the "bill's come due" phase of our ecological destruction to fuel hedonistic thoughtless life styles, this destabilises political systems making coordinated action harder.

The last window to act in a "politically feasible way" was the 90s.

Hence all the buildup and focus on Kyoto.

Total fail.

↪boethius ... which has nothing to do with the use of nukes against Ukraine. Thank you for your constant obfuscation. — Olivier5

I just explained exactly how it had to do with Nukes. I can explain it again if you want.

Already the threat of nuclear war precluded NATO boots on the ground and planes in the air (the common sense way to "defend freedom and democracy" a la WWII, which is the West's own preferred analogy). Of the arms and intelligence support Ukraine has gotten ... why only HIMARS now? ... and not literally the first day of the war?

The answer is because HIMARS can be introduced now maintaining a Russian win.

NATO is quite upfront that their goals is to bleed the Russians, not that Ukraine "win's", hence the concept of a "strategic defeat" in the context of a war that you win needed to be developed.

All of these policies and decisions have to do with Nuclear weapons. If the same war fervour developed in pre-nuclear Europe and USA there would already be a continental scale war rapidly escalating into into a global war. What puts the brakes on that process is the prospect of nuclear escalation.

Until or if Putin can threaten/force Sweden/Finland sufficiently, they'll be parts of NATO defense, unlike Ukraine. As it stands, I don't think Putin and team really have the extra resources. Rattling the nukes brought some additional attention onto them. (Might not be the best for them?) Russia threatens, invades Ukraine, threatens a bit, dismisses a bit, two other neighbors set to join NATO, ... — jorndoe

Finland and Sweden joining NATO is not some sort of Ukrainian victory.

Honestly seems a bit insulting to Ukrainians that Finland and Sweden "get to join", having not been asking or wanting to for decades, while for a decade and a half it NATO membership was dangled in front of Ukraine but ... ah, ah, ah, one can look but one must never touch the NATO membership.

The most annoying part of that hypocrisy is that Western media frame the "expansion" of NATO Eastward as not-an-expansion as it was just countries joining out of their own volition, NATO agency and planning had nothing to do with it. But ... again ... why not Ukraine? They wanted to be let in too?

As for Finland and Sweden joining NATO, this has basically zero consequence on anything, at least in the short term. NATO's policy is clearly no direct engagement with Russia and Finland and Sweden joining NATO doesn't change that. It would matter if Russia was planning to invade Finland and Sweden, but there's zero evidence of that and, again, the most annoying hypocrisy that Russia not fully defeating Ukraine in 3 days demonstrates it's a incompetent and nothing-to-worry about force ... but we also need to be so worried as to run to NATO for protection?!

Finland and Sweden are a PR victory to sell Westerners the idea we "stood up to Putin", but there's no evidence that the Kremlin cares about Finland being in NATO or not. Of course, if there's a full scale war, it's strategically inconvenient, but if that's nuclear armageddon anyways ... it doesn't matter all that much.

Framed as a Russia vs NATO conflict ... Finland and Sweden joining NATO is terrible blow.

However, framed as a Russia vs Ukraine conflict--concerning spheres of influence in Russia speaking places (which Finland and Sweden don't have any of), and about oil and natural gas (which Finland and Sweden don't have any of) and black sea port and transcontinental pipelines (which Finland and Sweden don't have any of)--and there's no intention nor much stock put in the idea of a full scale war with NATO, then the whole Finland and Sweden joining NATO is at best meaningless and at worse just rubbing it in Ukrainian faces that they're not valuable enough to be in our little club (but we totally lead them on about for nearly 2 decades anyways just to see what would happen).

↪boethius I'm not interested in speculating about what I see as a totally unrealistic assumption. — Olivier5

It's not speculation, the policy of not escalating "too much" is official NATO policy.

Even Biden just came out one day and shut down talk of a no-fly zone, essentially telling everyone in the media and Ukraine to grow up and get real ... never to be talked about again.

No, it was not realistic, not in the way you fantacized about, i.e. as a way to break Ukrainian resistance. — Olivier5

I did make this claim. I claimed you can use tactical nukes to win battles, bust bunkers, the sort of things tactical nukes are designed to do.

@ssu already pointed that doesn't mean Ukrainians would give up, they could spread out and be less vulnerable to nuclear weapons.

Which I agreed with, but pointed out in return that without concentrating forces for a counter-offensive it's essentially impossible to conduct counter-offensives and basically no way to "win" in military terms against Russia.

This is not some fantasy, it's just reality that Russia has the tactical nuclear card it can play and this is what keeps NATO from escalating past a point that Russia may play that card.

It's also not just about WWIII and ICGM exchange, which Russia using tactical nukes in Ukraine is very unlikely to trigger.

The United States has a strategic interest in avoiding Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine which is euphemistically referred to as "breaking the nuclear taboo".

For, if tactical nuclear weapons were to become a common place occurrence in military confrontations, this would negate a large part of US military power.

It "makes sense" that people don't use nuclear weapons ... but a few months ago it "made sense" that "the old concepts of fighting big tank battles on European land mass are over". Things can change, and the nuclear taboo is the first time in history that an available weapons system has not been used between culturally diverse adversaries (there have been weapons taboos, such as cross bows in Europe or fire arms in Japan, but only within the same culture, and sort of the exception that proves the rule, as even Europeans could use cross bows in crusades and Japanese taboo on fire arms didn't last--in short, the historical examples of weapons taboos are not actually source for comfort).

Really? That's the story and the whole story? — jorndoe

Pretty much.

NATO could have sent in planes and sent in troops and do what logically follows from the moral imperative to protect Ukrainian sovereignty.

It didn't. Why?

Nuclear weapons.

And if you're not willing to send in troops to implement your vision of things yourself, because of nuclear weapons, what coheres with that decision is also to not send enough weapons, intelligence and training to win that way either, but the logical corollary to not sending troops and planes is to calibrate support to "no win", which is what we've seen. It's a dangerous game, as war is unpredictable, but it's the game NATO's playing.

Even Zelensky complains about it occasionally, when the blood weighs him down and he can't see through it anymore.

And the Ukrainians are but dumb automatons? — jorndoe

I have been a conscript and this is a good description, as unfortunate it as it is.

How close to light speed could this ship go? — TiredThinker

The short answer is that it can go arbitrarily close the speed of light without ever reaching the speed of light. With more fuel magically available it can increase it's momentum indefinitely, getting closer and closer to the speed of light (from our perspective on earth).

Long answer, the ship will always measure the speed of light as C on the ship, so relative the ship's frame of reference it stays stationary relative the speed of light (its motion relative to us on earth changes, but the speed of light stays constant for all observers, so the ship never measures the speed of light different).

Or perhaps it would eventually convert into energy ceasing to be the ship in order to travel at light speed? — TiredThinker

This would not occur. Only massless particles can travel at the speed of light (and no other speed). Particles with mass travel can get arbitrarily close but never reach the speed of light.

As points out, cosmic rays can go incredibly close to the speed of light, and are a good example of your external energy experiment (energy being supplied to the particle by a quasar or super nova).

Some particles hit our atmosphere with the kinetic energy of a major league baseball pitch, which I find pretty incredible a single particle would have the impact of a 90 mile an hour fast ball (if all the energy could be dumped in a catcher's mitt).

The thing difficult to wrap one's head around is the speed of light being constant for all observers regardless of their relative motion, but there's plenty of youtube videos that explain it in different ways.

The more philosophical aspect of it is that such a principle means the universe has no preferred reference frame, and there's no logical reason for that to be the case (entirely possible to imagine a universe that clearly has a "standing still" frame of reference with some observable effects simply for not being still, with larger effects the less still you are). This no-preferred reference frame (and thus speed of light is the same for all observers), fits in with a series of philosophical / seemingly observed assumptions about cosmology, such as there is no centre to the universe (universe is similar in all directions on large scales), no special time (in the sense of recording events), the laws of physics are the same in the whole universe through both space and time, particles are identical and have no unique identities, and a few others.

Even something as fundamental as the electric and magnetic fields aren't special, what is a magnetic effect from one perspective can be an electric effect from a different perspective. Likewise a gravitational field can be indistinguishable from acceleration.

There's a sort of theme to these "no special reference point" and "no-special place" and "no-special particles" and "no-special laws" and "no special time" set of principles. There's no "logical" reason that this needs to be the case.

As puzzling as these nothing-special principles are, is that there are exceptions to the theme in that there's a special direction to entropy (increases rather than decreases) and special moments in time (beginning of the universe as well as the present moment ... again, just as there's no logical necessity to the first nothing-special principles, there's no logical necessity to either a beginning in time nor consciousness perceiving one moment in time, rather than all time at once or then going backwards or forwards with no particular preference or even just jumping around randomly through time). Non-unique, uniform types of particles (although the kinds of particles are a special quantity for no particular reason), combine to form unique objects with tractable histories. Your consciousness is also special to your body ... again, not really any reason for that when you think about it.

↪boethius That was in response to you equally unrealistic musing about Russian use of nukes against Ukraine. — Olivier5

Russia using nuclear weapons is completely realistic.

Without that being realistic (if Nukes didn't exist or Russia didn't have them) we'd already be in full blown World War III.

The reason the immense pro-Ukrainian social media fervour and anti-Russian condemnation and Churchillian speeches and all that, didn't result in "let's go boys!" is precisely because Russia has nuclear weapons and will use them under certain conditions.

Even the small gesture of a no-fly zone was taken off the table due to the threat of nuclear weapons.

Indeed, the whole reason weapons are being supplied to Ukraine in a sequence, the next weapon system only supplied when it is clear the previous weapon system didn't "beat Russia" is precisely to keep the situation stable.

What's stable? Russia winning easily enough that there's no reason to use nuclear weapons.

The weapons are just so the West can say "it tried" (and also supply the black market to destabilise the entire continents security).

In reality, Russia has nuclear weapons, and a lot of them, and the means to deliver them both tactically and strategically, and the actual moral imperative in the situation is to avoid nuclear war regardless of Russia's actions and regardless of how many Ukrainians will die due to non-"kinetic"-intervention.

The so-called moral imperative of "freedom" or whatever is merely a tool to whip people up into whatever frenzy people need to be in to support self-harming policies, right up to the line that's realistic to go in a confrontation with Russia without resulting in a nuclear war: as soon as we get near that line, suddenly the "adults" come out to say "we need to be responsible and not start a nuclear war, so we get everyone is angry at Russia and Ukrainian sovereignty or whatever, but we need to be realistic".

For those interested, the reason the problem of renewables and backup capacity isn't talked about much is, to make a long story short, the media is dumb.

When renewable energy was in development stage, the media would report cost-per-watt figures of each project, leaving the reader with the strong impression that once solar and/or wind achieved cost-parity with fossils ... we win! Hurrah! Climate change solved.

The problem with this vapid analysis is two fold.

First, cost parity is a stupid metric in the context of fossil fuels being both directly subsidised, indirectly subsidised (such as a giant war machine required to protect shipping lanes and oil-despots--the "friendly" one's ... and also attack the "mean" oil despots), while not internalising the real costs. Using this as a metric is essentially buying into the fossil lobbies "frame" (aka. being their bitch without any capacity for independent thought) as conservative red pillers would say.

However, worse, even if we accept this framework, and just not question fossil fuels getting all these subsidies (let's say for the sake of argument we're morons), then, even so, cost parity with fossil's isn't a good metric.

The grid as designed pre-renewables, already required some level of rapid response in the event a power station went offline all-of-a-sudden the rest of the grid should rapidly compensate. However, this rapid response level, pre-renewables, is generally about 10 to 15% of the whole grid capacity.

So, the first renewable projects can be easily hooked up to the grid no problem as there's already a system to deal with small levels of variability.

However, let's say the grid stays the same and more renewable capacity is added, as this 10-15% level is approached already now there's the risk that the renewable power generation collapses and some other power plant goes offline unexpectedly at the same time ... so already this isn't good.

Push above this buffer zone and collapse of renewable power can collapse the whole grid, or then rolling blackouts are needed to reduce consumption.

Circling back to "grid parity" these added costs need to be included in the cost of solar / wind which, when done honestly, demonstrate the immense scale of our predicament. Energy storage on a large scale is a very large infrastructure project that requires decades to build even if the technologies required were cost-competitive with subsidised fossil. Add in some disruption to the global system as resource competition heats up, a few material bottle necks ... and ... its gone.

What's even the proposed connection between "faltering" wind power and a heat wave?

Or do they have problems with their "freedom" grid again?

Well on the bright side Europe is probably gonna be forced to taking the transition more seriously this time now that they are effectively at war with Russia. — Mr Bee

Put aside the hypocrisy of European leaders all of a sudden wanting actual clean energy to "save Ukraine" and "show Putin" ... yet somehow the entire world and most things that dwell upon the world wasn't good enough all these years?!

Cutting ties with Russia simply forces a return to coal and dirtier fuels.

For large electricity grid based economies, until (1) renewable energy storage is economic and (2) there's enough over-capacity of renewable energy to fill up said storage, then natural gas is required to develop the renewable energy system to accomplish both 1 and 2.

It just so happens that coal and nuclear cannot adjust their output rapidly to compensate fluctuations in renewable energy output. The larger the renewable energy capacity the larger the fluctuations can be, and therefore the larger the online capacity of a auxiliary power source is needed.

Just so happens that basically only natural gas and hydro have this characteristic (that output can be scaled up or down rapidly).

The gas deals and gas infrastructure with Russia was part of a coherent plan to develop renewable energy in Germany and friends. For, if you actually want to go towards 100% renewable, then you need very large natural gas capacity (both power plants and storage of natural gas) to cover a large majority of the grid for when both solar and wind output is minimal (which does happen; the truism that it is either sunny or windy is a "usually" kind of thing, but it can be both cloudy and not-windy).

But far more important than that, European elites have essentially thrown away all their political capital and economic clout in which to influence world policies.

The Ukraine crisis and cold-war "the reboot" effectively removes Europe as a player on the world stage.

We will need now to be relying now on the US, China and India, Russia Brazil et. al. to lead the way in environmental policies.

In short, Europe only had influence as a major economy within the globalised system; destroy that system by doing nothing to use said economic influence to avoid a disastrous European war, and Europe becomes completely irrelevant to global affairs.

US has "asserted its dominance" over its subordinates--what it wanted--but a gang leader that stays at the top by undermining the psychology, material wellbeing and dispossessing his underlings ... well, let's just say it's a double edged shiv.

(As a little footnote, burning biological material for electricity is just stupid and totally meaningless at the scales of concern.)

Well then, I'm a realist alright. That's exactly what I try to do. — Olivier5

Explain to us again how your policy proposal of the US slipping Ukraine a couple of nukes to hit Moscow and St. Petersburg is:

A. Realistic.

and,

B. Example of you just applying not letting your "subjective values taint" your "attempt at objectively estimating and predicting actions and consequences on the world stage"?

Sometimes justice is just unavailable. You don't give up on justice because of that, though. You keep struggling, because it might become feasible tomorrow. — Tate

Completely agreed.

What is feasible in the far future is fairly wide open. The world has significantly changed from the distant past, and it is reasonable to assume can be significantly different in the far future.

The complicated part is working backwards to what is actually effective to do today to contribute to a better feasible future.

And, as you say, just hanging on in case circumstances change is morally superior to giving in. Again, total agreement there.

Furthermore, even if the "most feasible" best option had a 1% chance of success (that our chances of extinction or AI enslavement or something was 99%) ... it's still the best option.

Feasible doesn't necessarily mean probable, just at least some chance of working and not delusional.

The best moral choice is whatever the "most feasible" option is. From a moral point of view, it does not matter how probable the most feasible way to achieve the best moral objectives are, only that other choices are worse.

How I conceptualised this when I was younger was that if I agree the goal of continuing humanity was paramount, if not "the" moral imperative certainly up there and should be compatible with other moral imperatives, then it does not matter if my actions extend the continuation of humanity a billion years, a million, a thousand, a hundred, a day or a second or a micro second.

If I say continuation of humanity is a good thing, then I must choose the actions that continue humanity (on some net present value probability distribution) a second than not. If that's just consuming less resources myself, the best I can do, then so be it. If I can contribute more, great.

Regretting the immorality of humankind is one activity. Trying to understand the world is another. — Tate

Agreed.

However, what I would add to that is that the only moral goals are feasible goals.

Political realism is not an anti-moral or even amoral perspective, it's simply trying to choose the best possible achievable outcome depending on one's morality. Of course what's real and what's moral is up for debate.

What is comfortable and easy is of course to ignore both subjects, and live in a fantasy that has nothing to do with reality, and care nothing for the troubles of others.

I agree. Putin could stop any time he wants to. He continues because it's benefitting him. — Tate

Yes, this is the political realism perspective.

The core problem with Western policy is that if you're not willing to go and fight with your own armies, then, by definition, it's not a moral imperative to fight the Russians.

However, by essentially weaponising the moralising to justify as much escalation as possible, within the bounds of the common sense political realism that a avoiding a nuclear war is the actual moral imperative in the situation, you end up with this strange beast of an aborted escalation: Ukraine is encouraged, financed, supplied to fight but can't win; sanctions are half measures (not to say full measures would be effective) and may very well hurt the West more than Russia; and no diplomacy is possible as each side has paid too high a cost to let go ... Russia of real land and Ukraine of their fantasies.

Of course, people can blame Putin for equal or larger moral failings all they want, but assuming Putin "wants to expand the Empire" then Western policies have essentially been a gift to Putin -- not doing anything about the neo-Nazi's secures domestic support for the war; encouraging Ukraine to enter total war and not negotiate allows Putin to make super minimum offers that, once rejected, justify doing things the hard way, and, of course, giving Ukrainians enough support to hurt Russia ... but not enough to win in any military sense, may indeed kill some Russians but it does not effect policy makers nor the eventual outcome much -- the Russians will extract their revenge later ... or right now in shutting off the gas.

As for the actual situation in Ukraine.

The West has backed off further escalation and current weapons supplies do not seem to even match consumption rates of ammunition. The soviet calibre seem to have run out or about to (according even to Ukraine) and the West has not even supplied sufficient NATO calibre replacements.

Unfortunately, even though the West has effectively given up on Ukraine and is working on deescalation, taking ascension of Finland and Sweden in NATO as some sort of Ukrainian victory, there seems at the moment no resolution feasible of the war.

All sides can be blamed morally for that, but it is the current reality.

Since the escalation cycle has been ended by the West, Ukraine has very low possibility of military victory of any sort nor potential for a stalemate.

The media focuses on disparity of one weapons system at a time, generally content when there is some at least symbolic victory of at least some of that system being sent to Ukraine, but all this is nearly entirely meaningless if Russia has overwhelming force in both quantity and types of systems (such as air power).

For sure, Russia has not matched Western expectations of casualties of personnel and equipment in fighting small militaries in the middle east, but it seems pretty clear now that taking casualties of equipment and people is not a problem for Russia in continuing the war, and Ukrainian losses are now even admitted by Ukraine to be far higher.

Sadly, Ukrainian leadership did not see the best time for a negotiated peace was at the start (or before) the war, and completely overestimated the effective control of popularity on social media to dictate Western policy: social media popularity dictates policy insofar as it happens to already be the chosen Western policy. I think the long social media campaign by Ukraine for a no-fly zone is the best example of that; political capital and intellectual energy was spent on that rather than diplomacy or other things certainly due to the belief that enough likes and calls for the idea would result in it's implementation (rather than just humiliating "yeah, no").

Without any realistic prospect of "defeating" Russia on the battlefield, nor with sanctions, and no political possibility of compromising (which, certainly, Russia can be blamed about as well in the current situation; just the difference is they are taking territory and don't need to care as much about compromise), and without further military escalation by the West, the war will unfortunately simply drag on until Russia runs out of steam to continue advancing, which could be soon or in years to come.

In parallel to the war, as further sanctions seem now completely off the table, and the political mood now is workarounds, the global economy will simply adapt to the sanctions situation making them less and less effective over time.

In short, prognosis is more war. Sadly.

Since the situation has not really changed, there's not much further to analyse.

As predicted, the West is calibrating its support to Ukraine for a slow loss (to avoid nuclear weapons being used), and, also as predicted, the shoulder launch missiles are not effective as a basis for counter offensives or defending artillery, and the conversation has nearly completely switched to artillery and range considerations with the euphoria of the flood of Javelines and imminent victory a distant dream.

Nevertheless, propaganda would certainly degrade the conversation and I think warrant at least responding to.

Kazakhstan is apparently taking an opportunity to sneak off?

Kazakhstan withdraws from CIS agreement on currency committee – UNIAN (Jul 10, 2022) — jorndoe

Zero reason to believe this means much of anything.

Just a few months before the war Russian special forces deployed to Kazakhstan to support the Kazakhstan government against a riot / coup attempt.

End of the bromance: why Xi is wary of going to Moscow (Jul 7, 2022) — jorndoe

We have zero clue what Xi actually thinks and the idea that what the West thinks morally about things (what seems to be called "politics" in this article) actually matters to Xi is farcical.

Furthermore, Russia has the second largest arms industry in the world and is trained on all its own equipment, has no shortage of equipment, and mostly Chinese arms are copies of Russian / Soviet designs (often under license). There is zero reason to believe Russia could even make any effective use of arms coming from China.

What Russia needs from China are industrial equipment, industrial services and IT services and systems, and as long as it can get this from China then sanctions have essentially no chance of causing any major disruption to the Russian economy (may cause a recession and lot's of inconvenience, but that's very different to critical capital equipments and infrastructure and industrial maintenance services being unavailable).

Chechen parliament speaker Magomed Daudov says that first and foremost, Chechen battalions in Ukraine are fighting a jihad to defend Islam. — jorndoe

You can find not only US state senators and congress people, but also at the federal level, who have said all sorts of absolutely crazy and un realistic things.

It would be maybe worth discussing if it was Kadyrov, but even then it doesn't really matter much either, if it's just sabre rattling and exaggeration and playing to his base.

None of this seems to have much relevance at all nor form part of any thesis.

If you just want to drop in little trivia or propaganda, supporting no argument just "lookie here" and "oh, over there", just go on twitter or write a blog.

And should I remind that some people on this thread seemed to be openly and triumphiantly believed Russia and enjoyed smirking at US alarms: — ssu

I've read the first few pages of the thread before the invasion, and I don't see anyone Triumphantly believing Russia.

Mostly people seem to expect the war will happen, and are worried of escalation.

I guess this phrase could be interpreted as "fizzling out" meaning the war doesn't happen.

I think this will fizzle out. US will back off eventually and pretend they didn’t (kind of like Vietnam). — I like sushi

... or ... or ... could be interpreted to represent exactly what's happening now.

I don't give a fuck about human life.
— Merkwurdichliebe

Some people here do, and they might found your cynicism offensive. Just so you know. — Olivier5

Says the guy who thinks NATO handing Ukraine a few Nukes under the table to nuke Moscow and St. Petersburg is A. a good idea and B. Russia would be like "oh my, you got us! the ol' nukes under the table ploy, plausible deniability, we can't retaliate, untouchable".

I'm not sure about that how much panic there is. It's just usually that when you don't have anything to say, any actual objections on the topic, anything to counter the arguments, some people then resort to ad hominems. — ssu

Oh, you mean ad hominems like:

↪boethius That you are a professional propagandist. — Olivier5

It's just a form of escapism from the resident FSB influencer here, i.e. boethius. Nothing more. — Olivier5

↪boethius I'm just pointing at what I perceive as an important difference between other "Ukraine antagonists" here and you: they are amateurs, while you're a professional, IMO. — Olivier5

As pathetic desperation of people that "don't have anything to say, any actual objections on the topic, anything to counter the arguments"?

Or ... not these ad hominems?

But if nuclear weapons are only to be used as an option for Russia if they feel an existential risk, then there's no risk. — Christoffer

... So when the use of nuclear weapons is inconvenient to your position, then there's simply no risk ... based on Russia's lying word about "existential threat" ... which is up for interpretation anyways.

In short, if Russia keeps its word (about policies it could change anytime anyways), according to you, then there's no risk?

The only one holding the cards here is Russia, if they want to annihilate themselves that's up to them, but even in their battlefield stupidity and imperial fantasies, they don't seem that stupid. — Christoffer

Ah ... I get it now, Russian's are stupid right up until the moment it's convenient to believe they aren't "that stupid" the moment that's convenient for you to believe.

Stay within your borders and fix your shit, until then we won't be fooled into some surprise attack, we will keep our guns aimed at our borders until you grow up from your toxic fantasies. — Christoffer

Maybe do some very basic geopolitical research.

Whether Russia invasion of Ukraine (to get water to Crimea and do other strategic things) turns out in the end to be a good idea or bad idea from a geopolitical point of view ... the "grow up" theory of international relations is new to me.

How did it apply to US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq ... or were you dismissively telling the US to "grow up" the whole time, and they finally listened and have "grown up" from their toxic fantasies of controlling middle east resources since retreating from Afghanistan last year?

They learned their lesson and now you are 100% behind these "adults" teaching the Kremlin trouble making "rebels" the same lesson?

Why would we let Russia ever get to the point of trying? — Christoffer

We agree there's basically zero danger right now or for the foreseeable future.

We agree that Russia may likely win in Ukraine, survive economically, rebuild its military stronger and better than it was before, and, therefore, could be a credible threat to Sweden at some point in the future.

Therefore, the risk of Russian military, economic and diplomatic victory over Ukraine should be taken seriously, and mitigated by joining NATO.

Even if all this we both agree on is true, the counter arguments are simply the same ones from the cold war, that being in NATO guarantees being targeted by nukes in a nuclear war, NATO having more land border with Russia increases (rather than decreases) the likelihood of nuclear war, which one is now a guaranteed nuclear strike target.

Of course, the rebuttal to that would be that major Finnish and Swedish cities are already targeted by nuclear weapons as Russia sees them as functionally part of the West anyways, in which maybe there is some marginal benefit to be in NATO anyways if Russia sees it that way anyways.

This argument can go back and forth.

The rebuttal to this rebuttal, that Sweden and Finland are already nuclear strike targets, is that the benefits are therefor only analytic edge cases and the optimum cost-benefit would be to reduce likelihood of nuclear war overall, which joining NATO increases rather than decreases.

To which is countered that more countries joining NATO lowers, rather than increases, chances of nuclear war, and so on and so forth.

If we're talking about some distant future where the context has radically changed and Russia wants and feels it can invade Finland and / or Sweden with conventional or even nuclear weapons, it's possible that NATO is a deterrent for that ... or it's possible that NATO is not a deterrent for that in this new future context. Indeed, being in NATO may actually increase the likelihood of an attack designed to demonstrate that NATO article 5 is not a credible deterrent anymore.

The general problem of nuclear weapons is that it's rational to cede to nuclear blackmail. For instance, if Russia dropped nuclear weapons on Finland and Sweden today or even the day after they join NATO, it still remains completely rational for the US, UK and France to not attack Russia with nuclear weapons, fearing a nuclear counter attack.

Which is why "madman theory" was developed by the Americans in the cold war, as the only way for nuclear deterrence to work (especially in covering other countries by your nuclear retaliation umbrella ... which Article 5 doesn't quite do), is that you are willing to do the irrational thing and launch nuclear weapons even if it is irrational to sacrifice most or all of your citizens that would not otherwise be harmed, due to a paragraph on a piece of paper.

Why the Western press calling Putin and the Kremlin insane is actually a strategically optimum favour (from a nuclear rivalry point of view, that we don't necessarily need, but NATO has insisted on us having), as it allows the Kremlin to play Kissinger's madman playbook without even trying very hard (American's had to spend significant effort to convince the Soviets they were cowboy crazy enough to launch a first strike if they woke up and felt like it).

Now they won't. Without Nato perhaps as a flank position for missile and weapon placement on Gotland when their military has been built up again, but now that we're about to join Nato they won't, which is the point. — Christoffer

Ok ... well then, when were they going to invade before?

And how does this concern for Finland and Sweden square with the idea Russia is losing in Ukraine?

If Russia can't even beat Ukraine, why would Finland and Sweden be in any danger at any point?

This morning, the CNN headline was basically "Ukraine reports Russia is taking heavy losses".

The headline right now is:

Ukrainian forces reach border near Kharkiv: 'Mr. President, we made it!'

Skipping over this front page, first headline news article starts with "A Ukrainian unit fighting north of Kharkiv says it has reached the Russian border. According to Ukrainian officials," with zero verification, aka. journalism of any kind, just whatever Ukraine says is reported immediately as front page headlines ... where have they "made it" too?

There's no reason to assume the Kharkiv positions are strategically important. It can be claimed that this is a prelude to strategic gains, that Ukraine is "about" to win, etc. but we've been hearing that every day for literally 3 months.

If Russia is intent on consolidating the gains so using only "contract" professional soldiers, and not conquer and passify Karkhiv with troops it doesn't have, then consolidating defensive lines makes sense, and these Ukrainian troops haven't "made it" to anywhere important.

They could invade Russia (let's just ignore there was plenty other parts of border to do that all this time) ... that then gives the Kremlin the mobilisation card (the Kremlin is so far playing by Russia's legal rules as far as possible).

Now, some "pro-Ukrainians" here seem to think that escalating further total war with Russia—even to the point of NATO slipping Ukraine a few nukes on the downlow to casually nuke Moscow and St. Petersburg—is a good thing.

That harming Russia, even if they don't lose but are just harmed according to our standards and not the Kremlins standards (which we don't even know how things are being evaluated), is justified whatever the cost to Ukraine.

People should really think longer, in my opinion, of non-Ukrainians holding this position that any and all harms to Russia, even nuking Moscow, is justified for Ukrainians to carry out, regardless of the cost to themselves.

A position that basically reduces to: Do what we want and cheer for, without any cost-benefit analysis of any kind, ever!! Do it!! Dot it for the vine!!

And you were able to deduce all this from your armchair?

Impressive. Most impressive.

When do you expect Russia will be invading Sweden?

Edit: BTW, I had some older friends over one of whom was a fighter pilot in the Dutch elite squadron and worked a lot with NATO. He still has contacts and it looks like a sure win for Ukraine now. — Benkei

I'm confused here. You say 'win' and then ask if they ought push for Donbass and Crimea. How's that a win? Russia comes in wanting control over Donbass and Crimea, it gets control over Donbass and Crimea. That doesn't sound like a win. What am I missing? — Isaac

Was about to post the same sentiment as @Isaac, just with also a map:



The black lines are what Russia controlled before the recent invasion, and Zelensky's own standard is removing Russia from all Urkainian pre-2014 territory, including Crimea, which no one seems to believe is going to happen (at least any time soon).

So ... where do these standards of Ukraine "winning" come from?

Now, jorndoe seems to believe the standard pro-diplomacy partisans such as my self have set for Russia is:

↪boethius, you continue to describe Putin's regime like an ("immune"/"untouchable") automaton bombing-machine, and, in that context, Ukrainians as meek humans (in contrast) that should just surrender. — jorndoe

And therefore anything less than this is Ukraine "winning" ... but, I have said repeatedly that Russians could have disastrous morale collapse any minute and be routed on all fronts, just as has been predicted since the start of the war by Western media.

It's still the case now, that Russians could be routed from all fronts.

However, as it stands, Russia has occupied and also passified a large chunk of territory; in particular, forming a land bridge to Crimea and also securing the water canal as Kehrson, which are pretty big strategic victories in the Ukraine theatre.

The only evidence for "strategic defeat" is simply ex-CIA type people saying so, in the context of current CIA people unironically saying Ukraine is "winning" the information war and the CIA is just an unbiased third party impartial investigative reporter of these events.

As for the actual strategic situation ... we still don't even know what the Kremlin is trying to accomplish strategically (other than, for sure, a land bridge and canal opening, which they's done).

For example, if the Russians wanted to bait Ukraine into a total war posture, that's happened.

Rather, seems the narrative is changing to Finland and Sweden joining NATO is strategic defeat of Russia, but if Russia wasn't planning to conquer Finland and Sweden then this doesn't really change much strategically, unless Finland and Sweden wanted to join NATO to then invade Russia ... but that seems unlikely.

What seems more likely, is that we are in a phase of the conflict where both NATO and Russia are convincing their respective audiences that their winning / have won.

This could be the prelude of de-escalation, which I would guess both NATO and Russia both want at this point ... or ... a lot more escalation, especially as it seems Ukraine--at least as represented by Zelensky--has no motivation to do.

However, it's unclear if Zelensky has any further escalation options, which would leave the conflict in a stalemate and not a "victory" for Ukraine.

The West portrays stalemate as a Russian "loss", but if the stalemate involves Russia sitting on the critical assets it wanted, the analysis doesn't make sense to me.

Currently, as the map above shows, there's only a small portion of the Dombas left in Ukrainian control, and the media has portrayed this small holdout as a Russian "loss" rather than conquering the rest of the Dombas as a Russian victory so far.

Of course, it would be a morale booster and show of strength for Russia to conquer that last piece of territory, but it hardly seems like a microcosm for the whole war.

Now, if Ukraine started to take strategically critical positions such as Kershon or then retake Mariupole (in particular when there were thousands of Ukrainian and Azov defenders), that would be one thing.

As it stands, considering the troop levels Russia committed to the conflict, the current results seem basically the maximum territory they could aim to conquer and passify ... and, just so happens, the "ambitious" side of the land-grabs experts were speculating before the war.

For, keep in mind, Russia has not mobilised to total war, which would vastly increase its war fighting capability but would have immense domestic political and economic consequences (Russians view conscription as solely for self-defence, and mobilising conscripts removes people from critical civilian roles that they were previously doing).

Which leaves a cost-benefit analysis of whether these Russian gains came at reasonable or unreasonable costs.

Ukraine, as immediately repeated by the Western press, claim that Russian losses have been excessive.

But we don't actually know.

Neither do we know Ukrainian losses.

Who is attritting who we don't actually know.